By Callie Holtermann
In late September, Washington Post sports reporter Chelsea Janes noticed a curious development in the New York Mets’ locker room. First baseman Pete Alonso had carried in a miniature pumpkin and placed it on the top shelf of his locker.
“I have never seen this before,” Janes wrote on the social platform X.
It would not be the last that Mets fans would hear of the pumpkin — the latest in a string of gleefully nonsensical lucky charms that have been embraced by the team amid its raucous run into the playoffs.
On Wednesday night, after the Mets defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to advance to the National League Championship Series, fans of the team rejoiced: The auspicious gourd had claimed another victim.
This season, Mets iconography has expanded to include Grimace, the purple McDonald’s mascot who now regularly graces the big screen at Citi Field, and “OMG,” a Latin pop anthem recorded by second baseman Jose Iglesias. (A remix featuring rapper Pitbull is apparently on its way.)
The pumpkin motif — which one headline called the team’s “gourd luck charm” — was arguably born with the same crack of a bat that rescued the team’s postseason hopes.
Last Thursday, Alonso hit the ninth-inning home run that powered the Mets past the Milwaukee Brewers and into a National League division series. Afterward, he took questions from reporters with his lucky pumpkin in one hand.
“It’s the playoff pumpkin,” Alonso said, a bottle of Champagne tucked under his other arm.
He gave the pumpkin a little toss, catching it in his palm. He and his wife had procured the pumpkin on a visit to a farm about 20 minutes outside Milwaukee, he said. He had picked it himself.
“Nothing’s more like fall than playoff baseball and pumpkins,” he added. As the team celebrated, players doused Alonso and his pumpkin in beer.
When the Mets returned to Queens this week after two weeks of road games, fans gave the pumpkin a hero’s welcome. They sought out playoff pumpkins of their own and decorated them in honor of the team. They dotted their posts on social media with the jack-o’-lantern emoji. One fan carried a pumpkin to Citi Field to watch Tuesday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Alonso had also arrived at that game carrying his pumpkin. The Mets won, 7-2.
Baseball fans have often given their teams unofficial mascots: The St. Louis Cardinals have a Rally Squirrel, which occasionally dashes onto the field during games. In 2019, fans of the Washington Nationals wore shark hats after a player used the children’s song “Baby Shark” as his walk-up song.
Mets fans seized on Grimace, a bloblike McDonald’s character, after the mascot threw out the first pitch at a game on June 12. The team went on to win the next seven games, and Grimace was later honored with a purple seat in the stands at Citi Field.
Andy Goldberg, the Mets’ chief marketing officer, said that he and his staff had tried to acknowledge Grimacemania without diminishing its fun. “If you take something and shove it down the fans’ throat,” he said, “it kind of loses its momentum, because it feels like a marketing ploy.”
The Mets marketing team did not dream up the pumpkin phenomenon, he added. “That is a Pete Alonso special,” he said. “Now it’s taking on a life of its own, and we’re having fun leaning into it.”
Why, exactly, have the team’s fans latched on to so many supposedly auspicious symbols this season? It may be a blend of hope, superstition and unabashed corniness, Mike Silva, host of the Talkin’ Mets podcast, said. “These are the kind of things that take a very rote, boring sport and add color commentary to it,” he said.
Supporters of the Mets, who have not won a World Series since 1986, can have an air of negativity, but a younger and more social media-savvy generation of fans seems to be pushing back, Silva said. “This is their chance to make this history theirs,” he said.
Wyatt Harness, a 28-year-old Mets fan, was inspired to buy his own playoff pumpkin at an apple orchard outside Philadelphia this weekend. He scoured the patch for a pumpkin that was similar in size and shape to Alonso’s.
After a rocky start to the season, Mets fans are eager to funnel their hope into practically any symbol, he said. And when it comes to the internet, sometimes the more nonsensical the better.
“I got it for the memes,” Harness said of the pumpkin, which now sits in his dining room. “It’s just like Pete said: October is about baseball and pumpkins.”
MLB PLAYOFFS
Division Series (Best of 5)
American League
Saturday’s Scores
New York Yankees 6, Kansas City Royals 5
Cleveland Guardians 7, Detroit Tigers 0
Monday’s Scores
Tigers 3, Guardians 0
Royals 4, Yankees 2
Wednesday’s Scores
Tigers 3, Guardians 0 (Detroit leads series 2-1)
Yankees 3, Royals 2 (NY leads series 2-1)
Thursday’s Games (all times Eastern)
Cleveland Guardians at Detroit Tigers, 6:08 p.m.
New York Yankees at Kansas City Royals, 8:08 p.m.
Saturday’s Games (if necessary)
Cleveland Guardians at Detroit Tigers, 4:38 p.m. (TBS,
turTV, MAX)
New York Yankees at Kansas City Royals, 8:08 p.m. (TBS,
turTV, MAX)
National League
Saturday’s Scores
New York Mets 6, Philadelphia Phillies 2
Los Angeles Dodgers 7, San Diego Padres 5
Sunday’s Scores
Phillies 7, Mets 6
Padres 10, Dodgers 2
Tuesday’s Scores
Mets 7, Phillies 2 (NY leads series 2-1)
Padres 6, Dodgers 5 (San Diego leads series 2-1)
Wednesday’s Scores
Mets 4, Phillies 1 (NY wins series 3-1)
Dodgers 8, Padres 0 (Series tied 2-2)
Friday’s Game
San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Dodgers, 8:08 p.m. ET
(FOX)
League Championship Series (Best of 7)
Game 1
Sunday, Oct. 13 (TBD)
New York Mets vs. Los Angeles Dodgers or San Diego Padres
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